Winter Phantom
by Hades'Queen
Summary: Please Read! Remus Lupin is back to teach at Hogwarts. On Christmas eve, he thinks about the strange blonde with blue eyes.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own the characters and setting of the story.

**A/N:** I have not written a Remus/Luna fic in a long time, therefore, I will be writing one now. What is with strange pairings and me?

**Summary: **Remus Lupin is back to teach at Hogwarts for Harry's seventh year. On the silent night of Christmas Eve, he thinks about the strange blonde with blue eyes. One-Shot in Remus' POV.

**Winter Phantoms**

Remus Lupin stared out the window at the sky. The windowpane was cold and frosted. Over the grounds of Hogwarts there was a blanket of snow covering the land. The brilliant navy blue of the night sky was illuminated by the stars that resembled diamonds and the large pearl like moon that was to be full in a couple of days. He was absolutely dreading it, but he found that he was not thinking much on it. There where other things occupying his mind at the moment, things that where not leaving him in peace as of recently.

Not too long ago, perhaps in the end of November he had broken off his relationship with Nymphadora Tonks. Together they had been since that faithful day in July when they ran into each other in the first Order Meeting. It had been the first time that they had seen each other in years and together they soon came to form more than a simple friendship, but he knew all along that she would never be in love him. He knew all along that she was going into the relationship in love with someone else, yet he didn't care. He wasn't in love with her either. Sure he loved her, but he was not IN LOVE with her. He loved her the way that he would love any friend, but it did not bear much further than that. He could live with or without her.

Tonks got with him out of convenience also. They where both great friends and single, so they had decided, what the hell? Why not? Their relationship was not going anywhere, they both knew it, but they both wanted a break from the emptiness of their hollow lives. They wanted more out of life than what they got for the past several years of their lives. It was a momentary solution to what seemed a minuscule problem. Actually he was surprised that they had lasted so long together, perhaps it was the fact that they pretended so much that they actually started believing the lie that they had created. They started to genuinely believe that they where in love with each other and that one day this would perhaps lead to a happy family.

How foolish they had been. As he remembered perfectly well he had often times caught her eyes wondering to Severus in Order meetings. She watched him as though she where bewitched by him. Her eyes followed his every movement, studied his every motion, there was perhaps nothing that Severus did or said that escaped her. For a long time it bothered him, for he had stared to believe in their lie, but he never did or said anything to her. He merely allowed himself to suppress the resentment that was beginning to grow within him. Resentment caused only because he believed that he was in love with her, resentment caused by the feeling that he was not enough for her.

Their lie lasted for two years. Two years they both wasted merely wanting to believe that they where in love with each other. Truly he did not know why she did it. Perhaps she believed that she was truly in love with him? Perhaps she was truly confused on what she felt? That was the only explanation that he could come up with that explained why she had been with him and why she had taken his departure so hard. It was reasonable and plausible.

It had been perhaps the first week over November on a Hogsmead weekend. He had gone to Hogsmead village for he had agreed upon meeting Tonks there that day. He was going to meet her near the Shrieking Shack and as he walked there, he saw her, the most fascinating person that he had ever met. Luna Lovegood, he had seen her. For a brief moment their eyes met, and as he stared into her beautiful blue gaze a sort of clarity of mind came to wash over him and he understood what a mess he had made of his life. Luna had than turned away and continued on her way to nowhere he suspected. He stood there and all the answers seemed to be there, staring him in the face. He felt so damn foolish for having allowed it get so far.

When he met up with Tonks he explained to her that he could no longer be with her. He told her that he could no longer keep up the charade, that he was tired of it. He also told her that he knew that she was in love with Snape and that he knew that she would never love him. He said to her that he still wished that they could continue being friends, but that enough was enough. He could no longer continue on their trail to nowhere.

What he said had angered her very much and he received a sharp stinging slap to the face. Through tear filled eyes and a strained voice Tonks told him that he could not presume that she loved anyone but him. She yelled at him that she was not in love with Snape and that she hated him for saying so. She told him that she hated him for breaking her heart and for wasting her time. Before leaving him standing there alone in the first, truly cold day of November, she told him that she hated him and that she did not wish to see him again, and that perhaps he would one day see that she was indeed in love with him and that he had merely pushed her away.

It was not long before she and Severus became an item and she came back to him asking for his forgiveness. He of course told her that he forgave her and never spoke on it anymore. Despite the fact that he was not in love with Tonks he found it slightly hurtful that she had said that she loved him and yet so quickly ran to the arms of Severus. What truly angered him was the way that Severus seemed to like to push it in his face that he was with Tonks and that Remus was not enough for her. Often times he wanted to tell Severus that Tonks was not enough for him, but he had to restrain himself from doing so, because he had for a long time considered Tonks the closest thing he had to love in his life. Besides she had always been a very close friend of his.

Remus continued to watch the moon and soon noted the small, crystalline snowflakes beginning to come down from the heavens. As he watched the snowfall he slowly turned his gaze to the snow covered grounds and it was than that he noted a figure in the snow. He could see blonde hair flying in the air. He leaned on the glass pane and found a pale face, with beautiful, large blue eyes. He was entranced as he watched her free spirit turning in circles as she looked up at the sky. Her arms where stretched forth to the heavens and she was slowly turning in circles, feeling the snowflakes fall upon her face.

Luna Lovegood, she was a pretty little second year when he first met her. He found her absolutely adorable in her complete innocence. Unlike other girls of her age, Luna did not care about her appearance or what others thought of her. She was in no hurry to grow up as other girls. She could still be seen in those days running around with daisies stuck in tresses of her blonde hair. He loved the way that her blue eyes seemed to follow him around the room in every lesson and watch him as though there was nothing else interesting in the world.

The next time his eyes grazed her she was a lovely young lady of fourteen years of age. He found her lying on the floor of the ministry of magic. He could tell that she was in pain she was not allowing it to show through. As he had stared at her he found that he was finding deep respect for her, she was full of so many surprises. He had always known that she was a powerful little witch, but he had not known that she was filled with so much courage and bravery. She had caught sight of him, as though she sensed that he was in the room and she merely smiled at him. They were unable to speak much to each other, but he felt happy that she was safe and to be able to see her once more.

Now he was back at Hogwarts, after two years of not being able to see her face to face. Sure he saw her often enough in his dreams and during the day. She was the lovely enigmatic memory that remained with him every single day. If not in his dreams, if he were sitting in Grimmauld he would suddenly feel like he could see her. As though she where standing there, but every time that he would see her she would be wearing a long, pain white cotton dress. It made her look so pale; she would look like a specter. He often wondered if perhaps she where truly there with him, but it seemed like every time that he would see her she would disappear of leave from sight.

Remus turned away from the window and was startled when he found that Luna was now standing somewhere behind him. He sighed in relief as he realized that it was only Luna. She was currently wearing that same old long, white dress with a silver cloak over it. She smiled at him and ran a hand through her blonde hair. "Luna what are you doing out so late?" he said gently as he looked at her. She smiled and stared out the window and at the snow. "Do you often take walks through the snow in the middle of the night?" he asked as he looked at her. Luna very slowly nodded. It was than that Remus realized that something was out of place. Luna was not regularly quite so quiet. She was usually one to at least answer one's questions with a word. She especially liked to speak to him. "Why are you not speaking?" he asked as he looked at her. Luna merely pointed to the window.

Remus stared out the window and found that Luna was now lying on the snow. She looked as though she where peacefully sleeping. He quickly turned to the person standing next to him and back at the parson lying in the snow. He felt bewildered and slightly frightened. He smelled the air and found that he could smell no trace of Luna's scent in the air. His sharpened werewolf senses would have caught her scent in the air, but they did not. He stared at the person before him and than realized that whoever it was had not scent at all. There was nothing, not even the slightest trace of a scent. He stared at the Luna before him and turned to the window where Luna was still laying the snow in what looked like a deep sleep.

Remus slowly stepped forward wondering what was standing before him, for it was clearly not Luna. Luna was laying in deep sleep in the snow. He wondered if perhaps he was just imagining Luna, or if perhaps he was finally going insane. He stepped closer to her, but feared to touch her. He wanted to touch her, to see if she was truly there, but he didn't wish to. Suppose she was truly there and he touched her? Any kind of contact with a female student would be considered inappropriate, especially at this hour in the night.

The Luna standing before him smiled at him a very sweet and good-natured smile. As if she could sense the rising anxious feeling that he had. She reached out her small, pale hand with long, elegant fingers. He watched as he hand so very slowly reached out to touch his cheek. He expected to soon feel the warmth of her finger gracing his cheek and secretly craved for the contact, but it didn't come. He could see her hand gently touching his face but he could feel nothing. As if she where not touching him at all. He felt absolutely nothing. There was no human warmth there and yet the touch was not that of a ghost. Her hand did not go through and penetrate him and it did not feel him with the feeling that someone had poured a bucket of ice water over him.

"What are you?" he asked as he stared at her. The Luna before him still had her hand at his cheek yet he felt nothing. He titled her head slightly to the right and continued to smile at him. Her blue eyes where sparkling and filled with warmth and with a warm feeling that he really didn't recognize. Inside his heart he wished that the real Luna would stare at him in such a way, for it filled him with warmth and a feeling stirred inside of him. The thing before him that seemed to glow in a white light of purity removed her hand and took a couple of steps back. With the perfect, pale, creamy index finger of her right hand she motioned for him to follow her. It was uncanny how much what stood before him looked like Luna. They where identical!

He followed this figure out of Hogwarts and outside, to where the real Luna lay. It was there that they came to a halt. The glowing figure stood next to the body of Luna, on the right side and held her hands together before her. Remus kneeled down next to Luna, on her left side, and checked her pulse. He sighed in relief as he realized that her heart was working just fine and that Luna was breathing normally, but Luna did not move. Every muscle in her body did not move of twitch. It was as though she were lying there without life. A horrible thought flashed through his head as he thought that this would perhaps be the way that she would look on her deathbed, so peaceful, but lifeless.

He looked up at the mysterious figure and watched as she lay down next to Luna and closed her eyes. Than something very strange happened. Both of the bodies seemed to move toward each other and just when it seemed like the where going to touch they started to combine. Soon enough the figure with no scent, that could not speak and could not be felt became one in the same with the real and yet hollow Luna. And in a moment in time something seemed to click in his brain. A fleeting thought that seemed to explain to him what was going on, but it was gone as soon as it came.

Luna slowly opened her eyes and her warm, blue sphere's smiled at him. A friendly smile came across her face as she sat up. She turned her head to the left and her blues eyes looked into his eyes. "I'm sorry if I frightened you back there, but I wanted to be nearer to you and the physical world has so many restraints," she said as she looked at him. If it was possible he became eve more confused.

"Physical world? What was that Luna?" he asked as he stared at her in a befuddled way.

"I was dancing. I saw you at the window. I wanted to be closer to you, but getting there with my body would have taken too long. I was scared that you might leave. I allowed my spirit to leave my body and get to where you where standing in less than ten seconds," she explained as she turned away and looked up at the sky. Remus forgot the fact that he was kneeling in snow and that the snow was seeping through his clothes, making his knees get wet and cold. He thought of what she said and wondered how it was possible that her spirit would be able to leave her body.

"Your spirit?" he asked as he looked at her.

"Yes, that is why you could not feel my touch, why I had no scent, why I could not speak. It is the human body that has all these things, along with the ability to breath and to have a heartbeat. The spirit can only feel those things that are emotional and nothing else. It is amazing how the body and spirit work together, how they where created the one foot the other," she said as she turned her attention to him and looked into his eyes. She motioned to her body by grabbing on her clothing and continued to speak. "This shell that has the ability to feel and touch would be nothing without the ability to feel emotions. And the ability to feel emotions as I have said comes from the spirit. They are two separate things, but they are incomplete without the other."

"But how?" he asked as he found that he was absolutely fascinated by this.

"I have the ability to separate the two, it is a very rare ability. Once you learn to control it you are able to do many things that you are unable to do in the physical world. The rules that apply to the physical world, like gravity, they do not apply in the spiritual world," she explained as she looked at him. "Most people can have an out of body experience. Anyone can, but it isn't quite the same was what I do. An out of body experience is when you experience something that you may be overwhelmed by and you feel that you are watching yourself and all others around you where you have a perfect view of everything that is going on."

Remus stared at her and for quite sometime seemed to be very deep in thought. He felt that her warm, sparkly gaze was on him, but he was looking back on when he was a child. "When I was a child and I would sleep in my bed. In my dreams I could often times see myself as I slept. As though I where sitting in a chair in a far corner of my dark room and watching as I slept. Is that somewhat as to what you are referring to?" he asked as he focused on her image.

"It is a variation of it, after all there are many different ways to experience it. It is different to different people," she said as she looked at him. "But this is one thing, you must not confuse the two, an out of body experience is very different to what I do. It merely allows you to see a certain situation from an uninvolved point of view. And it is only for a fleeting couple of seconds, but you see and hear nothing that isn't actually said or able to be seen by the human eye."

"And you can?" he asked as he looked at her.

"'Bravery is not the absence of fear. It is the presence of fear and the will to act on it'," she responded as she looked at him. He looked bewildered for a moment. When he felt her warm, lush lips pressed against his he was at first shocked but soon allowed himself to melt into her lips and allowed himself to feel what he had wanted for so long. He soon felt her hands, which strangely enough where warm, despite the fact that they had been sitting out in the cold for so long, gently caress his cheek. It was the very same caress that he could not feel when he was inside with her spirit in the castle. And however long he had yearned for this, he found himself involuntarily pulling away as the wretched fact that she was his student ran through his head.

"Luna I can't," he said as he looked into her eyes.

"I know. The same way that I know that you have always longed to love me, is the same way that I know that you will not allow yourself to. You have told yourself that the only reason you allow yourself not to love me is because you believed that I did not feel that way. But now that you know it simply isn't true, you have no other lie to hide your fears behind. For what you fear is that I shall hurt you, what you fear is that you shall hurt me, and you fear what others will think," she said as her smile became melancholy, but her eyes continued to shine with great love for him. "I know and I understand," she said as she stood up and began to walk away from him.

He sat there in the snow and watched her as she slowly walked towards the castle. He cursed himself for his logic and his fears. He knew that he was throwing away his chance as a true love and his happiness away. He knew that it was slipping away. And at that moment he suddenly felt detached. As though he where watching the entire scene from far away. He could see the look on Luna's face with moist tears in her eyes, from where he felt he stood she was waling toward him and he could see himself sitting miserably in the snow. Remus immediately stood up and quickly walked toward where Luna was and stood before her.

"I don't care anymore," he said as he gently wiped the tear away from her eyes. Her eyes, through the tears, sparkled and shined and a sincere and loving smile came across her face. He gently grabbed her chin and tilted her head up. He slowly leaned down and placed a chaste kiss on her war lips.

Remus watched Luna who was curled up in sleep in the large bed in the shrieking shack. The light of the full moon was bathing into the room and lighting her figure. She lay in the bed in a beautiful white dress and the way that the moon fell on her made her look like the most splendid beauty in the world. He never imagined that he would be able to see her in this way.

He walked over on all fours and jumped onto the bed. He quickly went forward and lay on its side, curled next to her. He lay there and watched her for a moment. Luna slowly opened her eyes and she smiled at him. For the first time in a very long time, Remus felt like himself in his wolf like form. He did not feel like the beast that he currently was. And though he knew that this was only the spirit of Luna that was with him, although he knew that he could not touch her, feel her touch, smell her or hear her lovely voice, he knew that she only wanted to love him and be with him and that was perfect at the moment.

**THE END**

**A/N: **Okay that's the end. I really hoped that you liked it and I just added that part at the end because I felt like it would make it seem like Luna and Remus where perfect for each other. Please Read & Review!


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